


a hint of smoke

by Bhelryss



Series: (Never) Just Genjutsu [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: A form of time travel, Gen, reboot!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: It's probably just genjutsu, but then again...
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino
Series: (Never) Just Genjutsu [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/461845
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

“I know this is a little advanced,” Akari-sensei says gently, at the end of her lesson. “But I would like to give anyone who might want to try one of the three techniques for genjutsu dismissal the opportunity to do so.” She pauses, and watches for hands to shoot into the air. Two do, Sakura-chan and Yori-kun, both first-generation candidates. 

“Yori-kun first,” she calls, and Yori wriggles out of his chair and bounces up to the front of the room. “Which method will you be using?”l

“Physical stimulus!” He points to a heavy bruise on his arm, a gift from physical conditioning class, and smiles real big.

Folding her hands, Sakura watches as Yori rocks backward, and then...nothing. Nothing happens. After a little while, Akari-sensei touches Yori on the shoulder and sends him back to his chair. “Good attempt Yori-kun, you were very close.

“Sakura-chan, you can come up now.”

Standing in front of the class, eagerness to prove herself wearing thin in the face of the eyes of all her classmates, Sakura almost misses Akari-sensei’s question. “C-chakra fl-fluctuation?”

Akari-sensei taps her nose, and when Sakura turns her head back towards the classroom, she’s struck by an open field of dirt. It looks torn up, like the illustrations of training fields in her manual books detailing terrain, but there’s smoke too...and lots of dark steel tossed around like dangerous confetti. Forgetting herself, Sakura steps forward and turns around to find nothing but the shape of trees in the distance. 

When she turns around again, she stares up at someone who looks familiar.

“Oh,” that lady says, hand glowing green against a bloodied shoulder, a limp arm. “Hi there.” She looks left and right, and her face grows scary as she considers their arena. Sakura takes a wary step backward.

“Hello Sakura-chan,” she says softly, expression open and comforting again, “Where are you now?”

“Class,” Sakura says easily, and then frowns. “But...this isn’t class.”

“Genjutsu then,” the lady says. “You aren’t supposed to meet me yet.” The wind changes, smoke blowing in the opposite direction, the far ends of the training field wavering like a heat shimmer.

“Who are you?”

“You can call me Inner, I suppose.” Inner laughs, and Sakura wonders why it doesn’t feel funny. The land ripples, and Inner drops her hand from her shoulder, arm still hanging limp and scary. “Go back to class, Sakura-chan. I’ll be here.”

Akari-sensei touches Sakura’s shoulder, and the classroom is back. Ino is watching her from their seats, and Sakura ducks away from her teacher’s touch to dart back to Ino’s side. “Nice try Sakura-chan! Now, we’ll go over genjutsu again next week, and then move onto ninjutsu.” Akari-sensei returns to her podium and shuffles through some papers, “A reminder: the training grounds on campus will be open through the rest of this week from 4 pm to 9 pm. There will be a quiz over weapon safety before the end of this week.” 

Finished up, the ninja hopefuls flood out the door. Sakura and Ino run out the door together, leaving Shikamaru and Chouji behind. “What’d she make you see?” Ino asks as she does a cartwheel. Her blue eyes are wide, curious, even as she goes through her stretches. They’re supposed to be practicing the academy kata, but Sakura is distracted by the mystery of Inner. 

“Some lady,” Sakura says, reaching for her toes to stretch her hamstrings. “I don’t know why though, but it was like something from a storybook.”

“Storybook?”

“Some ninja out on a training field I guess? Like um,” Sakura straightens up, and tugs a little bit on her bangs, “I don’t know. It just seemed really weird.” 

“Weird.” Ino determines solidly, and Sakura smiles at her. “C’mon, let’s go chase Shikamaru around the park!!”


	2. Chapter 2

When Sakura dreams, she sees Inner. She’s less bloody, in Sakura’s dreams. Prettier without all the blood, looking more like the hero of a graphic novel even with her still-limp arm. Inner sits with her legs crossed while Sakura stands, and she listens while Sakura talks about Ino and class and helps her fly like a hawk through the sky by lifting her up to the winds.

Sakura babbles about her flying dreams, and Ino listens, and then she talks about how in her dreams she’s Hokage and all the stinky boys in their class have to take the flower arrangement courses and she laughs at their clumsy combinations.

“You could totally be Hokage,” Sakura says hotly, throwing her hands up. Lunch break isn’t long, but it’s plenty of time to be sure of her place in the world. “What would I be?”

“ANBU captain!” Ino declares! “And then everybody will have to listen to us. “It’s about time we had a lady Hokage, you know.” 

Sakura nods, because she does know! She totally knows, she knows so much. “I’ll work really hard Ino!” Internally, she shouts, “We’ll do it together!!”

“And No Boys Allowed!!! Except Chouji!”

Chouji looks up from his lunch, hand paused dramatically in front of his mouth, and he blinks in confusion.

“Don’t ask,” Shikamaru grumbles, eyes still closed and looking to all the world like he’s sound asleep.

Ino and Sakura laugh, and then it’s time to pack up their lunches and head back inside. She really should be paying attention to class, there  _ is _ a test coming up over the building blocks of the math they’ll eventually use to calculate projectile angles and distances, but Sakura doodles animal masks and sunflowers instead. Ino is going to be Hokage, one day. She’s sure of it.

It’s not like she doesn’t know the material anyway. She’s been studying at home. 

Sometimes, dreams can be prophetic. Sakura learned that word yesterday. Prophetic: predicting events. Maybe her dreams are prophetic too! Maybe one day she’ll be like inner! With a pretty forehead protector keeping her bangs out of her face, and with a cute combat uniform too!

That would be really, really cool. 

“Do you really think I could be ANBU, Ino?” Sakura asks, and this time she’s quiet. There are new bruises on her arms now, from a spar with Ami. Right now, all she feels capable of is crying into her skinned knees. She’s not very good at the physical conditioning classes right now, and it’s hard.

Ino is laying back, staring at the sky. For once, they’re not chasing each other around the park, or anything else. “Yeah.” She says it quietly too, but firmly. “I really think you could.

“We can work hard together,” she says, because she can read Sakura’s silences. “I won’t be a good Hokage if I let my best friend fall behind, huh?”

Sakura perks up, smiling so big and bright. “Y-yeah!”

“Okay, let’s run, okay? We have to get really fast.” Ino props her fist on her hip, and she tips her head to the side. “My daddy says good ninja are really fast, so we’ll have to practice really hard.”

“Okay!”

When Sakura dreams at night, Inner is there.

“I have a lesson for you, Sakura,” Inner says, and she looks really sad. “Come here, okay?” She holds something bright in her hand, bright and hard to look at. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt you.”

Sakura touches it and wakes up sweating, shaking. Shaking off her sheets, Sakura spills onto the floor and keeps her hands rooted in her carpet. “I could never tell Ino to go away,” she whispers to herself. “Not for him. Why would I do that…I’m  _ never _ going to do that.”

Ino is her best friend, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> so! rebooting my old fic. this one is going to be less ambitious in scale since i got bogged down in expectations last time, but I hope more optimistic in tone.
> 
> for anyone coming into this from the old work, im really honored you're still sticking with me, and i hope to make a story enjoyable for y'all too


End file.
